sleep is for the Weak (and baby, are we Strong)
by Kuro49
Summary: Chuck/Bryce. They don't need to speak Klingon in bed when Bryce speaks in Chuck's name, and Chuck in his.


I am still infatuated with the epic love story that is Chuck and Bryce. But really, this is just an excuse to write handsy college boys, hurt/comfort lovin', and sexual healing. I just really really love them, okay. Again, canon is not really my forte, this can be read as an AU starting from Bryce's very first return from the dead or the second time he 'dies' again.

XXX

**sleep is for the Weak (and baby, are we Strong)**

XXX

The mattress at Stanford is thin, the walls of their room even thinner.

So when Chuck has him lying flat against his back, t-shirt pushing back to expose bare skin he can't quite stop touching, Bryce also has a hand over his mouth to muffle the noises he can't contain in the back of his throat.

(Because it only makes sense to hang a sock on the door knob of their shared room if there is a girl who saunters out every once in a while. Not when there is just the two of them and hands they don't know how to keep to themselves.)

Bryce wants to bite his tongue to swallow back that soft groan he lets escape but then Chuck does that unconscious thing with his eyes and licks his lips. Looks at him like he is the best thing that has ever happened to him, can't believe that he has him, pliant beneath him. After that, it gets a little hard to stay quiet, or even coherent at all.

The rest of their frat house be damned.

He jerks to his touch with a half-formed moan made around their open mouthed kisses, tongues slick and moving slow. His skin is buzzing with a feverish intent as he runs his fingers down his ribs to rest at that dip of his hip, made perfect for his hands.

He doesn't let go, he doesn't want to learn how to.

Chuck mutes him with an insistent kiss and makes up for it with a slide of their skin together, obscene in the way he can't hear but can feel through the entire length of his body, right down to where they are connected. Mouth to lips and hand to hips.

They fuck to a mix soundtrack of obscure bands turned up too loud, (and to this day hearing any one of those songs on that CD can make them hard before the first chorus even repeats itself).

000

The mattress in Chuck's bedroom is an ordinary thing, it is also the best thing on earth.

Bryce has never been one for apologies (or the truth) but when he is tucked against Chuck and the only barriers between them are the thin fabric of their t-shirts, the only thing he can say (whisper over the heat of Chuck's skin) is, "I'm sorry."

And it's a mantra.

One he's been repeating since he placed those exam answers on Chuck's side of the room (even though the line between what's his and theirs have long been blurred, not when he is his and then vice versa too). Maybe even before that.

Maybe he's started saying those words on repeat since he first decided to accept Professor Flemming's recruitment into the CIA. But right now, he sleeps in a t-shirt that has to be Chuck's, because it is too large and it smells like all the things he's been trying to forget since their third and final year at Stanford.

And even though his definition of sleep is skewed (because dozing off for 90 minutes at a time and closing his eyes aren't exactly 'sleep' per se. But that's the best he can do without being sedated and he's been drugged enough times to know he doesn't want that either).

Well, that's alright too.

His leg is tucked between Chuck's and their ankles are tangled and the intimacy between them is everything he needs but should not have. But then his chest rises and falls with Chuck's and frankly, there's never been a better time to tell the world to fuck off.

000

The mattress beneath them is foreign. It is after dark and the only source of light is from the opened bathroom door, harsh white cutting across the single bed, over them still in their days old clothes.

There are two cars out in the empty parking lot. (He is a long way from home.)

Bryce twists in his grip, forces Chuck to look his way.

And he does just exactly what Bryce is refusing to ask. Chuck meets his gaze and Bryce is daring him to look away. Not in those exact words, because Bryce has never been capable of being cruel to Chuck, not that his actions don't have consequences, not when he still believes that the end justifies the means. But it comes close.

Chuck swallows, mind racing in anticipation because Bryce has always been unpredictable in the way that only he can be. The let's fuck for the entire night and the next morning, I'll get you kicked out of college kind of way.

"You shouldn't have followed me," and Bryce says it like he is the one at fault.

Chuck doesn't understand, never did, not when it comes to Bryce's self-sacrificing ways.

And it may not hurt as much as how he reflexively slams the motel door in Chuck's face when he opens it to the knocking, fully expecting his pizza delivery instead. But god, does Bryce have a way with his heart.

Chuck bites back a suffering sigh the same moment that Bryce thinks of the price on his head (theirs now that Chuck has upped and left). There is no way that this can be the right thing to do, no way his love for him is still enough to save the world.

In his head, Bryce scoffs.

In the bed, Bryce clenches his fists into Chuck's shirt, blunt fingernails biting into the soft cotton.

"Well, you shouldn't have tried to leave without telling me either."

Chuck has a furrow between his brows, a decision in the making, one that doesn't let Bryce guilt him into leaving, not when he just got him back from the dead. Instead, Chuck takes Bryce's wrists in his hands, the ones still clenched into his shirt, and drags him impossibly close.

"You're stuck with me now."

He leans down and takes his mouth in his. It resembles nothing like their college ways, all drunken lust and fumbling hands. Pulling his bottom lip between his teeth, he kisses the resistance from his tongue. And leave it to Chuck to find the gentlest method of tearing down Bryce's walls. With the soft insistent press of his mouth, he mercilessly brings down those years of superspy defences, the ones he has been building since Stanford (since Chuck).

"Stop trying to think you know what's best for me," he says around another kiss, lets go of one wrist to wrap an arm around his waist, "stop trying to keep me safe, Bryce."

They are lying on a strange bed, on the outskirts of a stranger town. Chuck doesn't say that Bryce is the best for him and Bryce doesn't say that he'll never be good enough.

They don't know anticipation and wills the world to go away. Chuck doesn't let go and Bryce finally doesn't fight. It's no easy surrender, it leaves him lost, grappling for purchase, opened wide and raw but still holding on.

They don't speak Klingon in bed.

They don't need to, not when Bryce speaks in Chuck's name (and it comes in soft desperate pants when Chuck grips him tight, moves into him just right). And Chuck in his, said into the column of his neck, said into his skin when he bites his claim along the curve of Bryce's shoulder.

Just as he's done all those years ago on that singles bed with the thin mattress in a room with thinner walls.

Because there is no language that can say just how Bryce feels, has felt for every year apart, no phonetic sound that marks just how Chuck feels the same.

XXX Kuro


End file.
